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I've been intrigued with the online newsletter for sometime now. When I went to the University of Delaware where I joined their journalism program and then was a professional journalist for six years prior to jumping to the other side (ie. marketing). Even though, I'm not on the journalism side of the spectrum now, it hasn't quite left me. After some false starts to find what I wanted to write about, here we are with Marketing Junto. The BackgroundI started my journey a couple of years ago exploring the once scrappy startup Substack. It intrigued me. No charge to start a newsletter except for 10% if you charge for subscriptions. It seemed like a good deal. I started to write, but something was missing. For one thing, it was a proprietary system (aka closed source) and I'm a supporter of the the open source movement (ie. WordPress and Ghost) and what it stands for. So after my last attempt at doing a newsletter fizzled and the world was hit with a global pandemic, I got distracted with keeping my business afloat. Now that things have calmed down, I decided it was time to try again. This time I discovered the Ghost.org, open source system. I'd be wanting to try it for a while. I've known the founder, John O'Nolan, since the late '00s. Since then he went on to helping the core of WordPress and then branched out around 2013 with Ghost.org. Any one who knows me, knows I'm all about WordPress, but I've been "Ghost-curious" for a while and took this opportunity to dive in. So far I like it — a lot. Back To SubstackRecently, Substack released a iOS app (I hear a Android app is coming soon) as a reader for those who want to read their Substack-published newsletters via the app and not in their email. On the head it looks like a cool new way to read newsletters. Then I realized that if these readers stopped getting the emails, opting to just read via the app, the connection would now be owned by Substack and not the writers. And that concerned me. Nieman Labs has Casey Newton's (originally published at Platformer.News) excellent write up with more background on Substack's platform move. Email The Last Bastion Of Owned CommunicationDramatic? Maybe. But when a writer has a list of emails from people who opted to hear from them, they control that list. They can control the experience and if they want to move their community to another email service provider (ESP) for whatever reason they can. With this platform play, the writer only has access to those email addresses of those readers who still get the emails. If the writer wants to move everyone they have to post on their Substack newsletter that they're moving and interrupt the experience to ask their readers to re-sign up. Not ideal at all. Here's Casey Newton from his article on how the app even suggests turning off email notifications: When I installed a beta version of the Substack app last week, I was struck by the effort the company is making to get you to use its app by default. When you sign in to your account, the first thing the app does is ask if you want to “pause” all email notifications from the publications to which you subscribe. It looks like this, and is switched on by default
Casey goes on to say that email is place where so much junk comes in, that when something you want comes in it's a joy. I wince at some of the language in the Substack app; I’d never send out a newsletter if I thought it was something your email inbox should be “spared” from. For my favorite newsletters, the reverse is true. My email inbox consists mostly of things I did not ask to receive; when one of my favorite newsletters shows up there, then, I get excited.
So What's There To Do?I'm not really sure. Substack, like Anchor (now owned by Spotify) on the podcasting side of content, has the potential of being a walled garden. Do we rise up and revolt? Or, better yet, do we educate people about the pros and cons of using a closed system? There really isn't anything inheritably bad or evil about these system, after all — right? I'll leave you with this thought, there are pros to having the underlying system done and managed for you, but keep in mind you give something up. But on the flipside spinning up a Ghost Pro account (albeit pretty easy) takes a little bit more effort and don't get me started with WordPress, which I love. What do you think? Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.
Consider Becoming A Supporting Member!Producing this newsletter is a labor of love for me. I love writing it and curating the links (below), but it cost money. If you're enjoying the newsletter and can forego a coffee at a local coffee shop once or twice a week to support this endeavor, I'd much appreciate it. Click the button below to become a founding/supporting member.
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Web Finds Of The Week- When a big company buys a beloved podcast network, it doesn't always go as planned. The podcast ecosystem isn't new, but monetizing it is still tough. Finding the happy medium between making money and making the audience and the hosts happy is a tough one.
- Remember Snapchat? It's still around and it's parent company Snap is up to some crazy things. From AR to VR to mind-controlled headbands? Snap is definitely not dead.
- I love WordPress, and yes I know this newsletter is hosted Ghost.org, but I spend most of my days in WordPress and the block editor has become an essential part of those hours spent working on sites for clients. Here's a good post from the gang over at WebDev Studios about why it's so beloved by content creators.
- If you're like me, you have a lot of sites to manage for clients and side projects that run on WordPress. The only way to keep the secure is to keep the plugins and core updated. You can do this manually, but it could take hours. Or you could try a management tool. My favorite is on there — MainWP.
- Shopify has its merits, as does Big Commerce, but there's something about free and only paying for what you need to make your store run that I like about WooCommerce.
- More than ever, with a saturated online world, brands and even individuals need to have a strong brand presence online. You need to set yourself and/or company apart from everyone else to get that coveted deal or job.
- Now you don't have to use your own brand on LinkedIn to have a newsletter, company pages now have the feature as well.
Guest ContributionFrom time to time, I'm going to have one of my brilliant colleagues write a piece for the newsletter. Here's the first one by my good friend Kerry Campion. "The Sale is in the Longtail" - Ross Simmons You've heard it, I've heard it… "The riches are in the niches." Well, the same principle can be applied to your keyword research. You might look to huge competitors in your space ranking for big keywords like "sales operations” and squirm with envy as you imagine those good-for-nothin's raking in all those thousands of hits on a minute-to-minute basis. But here's the thing… The broader the keyword, the less likely you are to convert visitors to your site from it. Ranking well for very broad, vague terms usually opens your site to the unwashed hordes of the internet. Hallions who'll bust down your gates, smash your stuff and leave an unflushable turd in your toilet. These very broad keywords usually bring in those non-converting hordes because their search intent is very unclear. Let's take someone searching for something in my niche: "seo copywriting". Are they: - Looking to become an SEO copywriter?
- Looking for a definition on SEO copywriting?
- Looking for an SEO copywriting course?
- Wanting to hire an SEO copywriter?
- Are they looking for tools related to SEO copywriting?
- Do they want to know who the best SEO copywriters are?
Google thinks they could be searching for any or all of these things, which makes it pretty hard to sell to them as we don't know wtf they actually want. Whereas, "how to become an SEO copywriter" tells me exactly what that person wants so I can deliver up the goods in my content (which I did 👇). It also has the added benefit that because it's more long tail I actually stood a chance of ranking for it and now I'm 2nd in the SERP, only behind Neil Patel. But the best bit? Because the search intent is so clear and because it's easier to rank for, this article brings consistent targeted visitors to my website and helps me grow my email list on autopilot where I can then upsell them to my paid SEO copywriting course. The sale is in the longtail. But how do you find really great long tail keywords without spending $100 a month? Yes. I've spilled the beans on how you can in my 5 day free email course: Keyword Research Fundamentals. Over 5 days you'll get the theory behind great keyword research and actionable tips delivered to your inbox. You'll also unlock my step-by-step keyword research workflow workshop from one of my paid programs. Yeah, it's a steal I know. See you over there? Kerry Campion is an SEO Copywriter, Content Marketing Strategist and founder of God Save the SERP where SEO copywriting sounds nothing like SEO copywriting. When she's not knee deep in analytics, she's wandering the woods with her German Shepherd, Kira.
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